Whatever was happening did not seem to be causing panic so much as acute, near total bewilderment.
Fiben did not have time to hang around and piece to-
fether this added puzzle. By now he thought he understood is own modest powers of concentration.
Focus on just one problem at a time, he told himself. Get to Gailet. Tell her you’re sorry you ever left her. Tell her you’II never ever do it again.
That was easy enough even for him to understand.
Fiben found a narrow trail leading up from the beach. It was crumbling and dangerous, especially in the gusting winds. Still, he hurried. And his pace was held down only by the amount of oxygen his limited lungs and heart could pump.
84
Uthacalthing
The four of them made a strange-looking group, hurrying northward under overcast skies. Perhaps some little native animals looked up and stared at them, blinking in momentary astonishment before they ducked back into their burrows and swore off the eating of overripe seeds ever again.
To Uthacalthing, though, the forced inarch was something of a humiliation. Each of the others, it seemed, had advantages over him.
Kault puffed and huffed and obviously did not like the rugged ground. But once the hulking Thennanin got moving he kept up a momentum that seemed unstoppable.
As for Jo-Jo, well, the little chim seemed by now to be a creature of this environment. He was under strict orders from Uthacalthing never to knuckle-walk within sight of Kault — no sense in taking a chance with arousing the Thennanin’s suspicions — but when the terrain got too rugged he sometimes just scrambled over an obstacle rather than going around it. And over the long flat stretches, Jo-Jo simply rode Robert’s back.
Robert had insisted on carrying the chim, whatever the official gulf in status between them. The human lad was impatient enough as it was. Clearly, he would rather have run all’ the way.
The change in Robert Oneagle was astonishing, and far more than physical. Last night, when Kault asked him to explain part of his story for the third time, Robert clearly and unself-consciously manifested a simple version of teev’nus over his head. Uthacalthing could kenn how the human deftly used the glyph to contain his frustration, so that none of it would spill over into outward discourtesy to the Thennanin.
Uthacalthing could see that there was much Robert was not telling. But what he said was enough.
I knew that Megan underestimated her son. But of this I had no expectation.
Clearly, he had underrated his own daughter as well.
Clearly. Uthacalthing tried not to resent his flesh and blood for her power, the power to rob him of more than he had thought he could ever lose.
He struggled to keep up with the others, but Uthacalthing’s change nodes already throbbed tiredly. It wasn’t just that Tymbrimi were more talented at adaptability than endurance. It was also a fault in his will. The others had purpose, even enthusiasm.
He had only duty to keep him going.
Kault stopped at the top of a rise, where the- looming mountains towered near and imposing. Already they were entering a forest of scrub trees that gained stature as they ascended. Uthacalthing looked up at the steep slopes ahead, already misted in what might be snow clouds, and hoped they would not have to climb much farther.
Kault’s massive hand closed around his as the Thennanin helped him up the final few meters. He waited patiently as Uthacalthing rested, breathing heavily through wide-open nostrils.
“I still can scarcely believe what I have been told,” Kault said. “Something about the Earthling’s story does not ring true, my colleague.”
“Tfunatu…” Uthacalthing switched to Anglic, which seemed to take less air. “What — what do you find hard to believe, Kault? Do you think Robert is lying?”
Kault waved his hands in front of himself. His ridgecrest inflated indignantly. “Certainly not! I only believe that the young fellow is naive.”
“Naive? In what way?” Uthacalthing could look up now without his vision splitting into two separate images in his cortex. Robert and Jo-Jo weren’t in sight. They must have gone on ahead.
“I mean that the Gubru are obviously up to much more than they claim. The deal they are offering — peace with Earth in exchange for tenancy on some Garthian islands and minor genetic purchase rights from neo-chimpanzee stock — such a deal seems barely worth the cost of an interstellar ceremony. It is my suspicion that they are after something else on the sly, my friend.”
“What do you think thsy want?”
Kault swung his almost neckless head left and right, as if looking to make sure no one else was within listening range. His voice dropped in both volume and timbre.
“I suspect that they intend to perform a snap-adoption.”
“Adoption? Oh… you mean—”
“Garthlings,” Kault finished for him. “This is why it is so fortunate your Earthling allies brought us this news. We can only hope that they will be able to provide transport, as they promised, or we will never be in time to prevent a terrible tragedy!”
Uthacalthing mourned all that he had lost. For Kault had raised a perplexing question, one well worth a well-crafted glyph of delicate wryness.
He had been successful, of course, beyond his wildest expectations. According to Robert, the Gubru had swallowed the “Garthling” myth “hook, line, and sinker.” At least for long enough to cause them harm and embarrassment.
Kault, too, had come to believe in the ghostly fable. But what was one to make of Kault’s claim that his own instruments verified the story?
Incredible.
And now, the Gubru seemed to be behaving as if they, too, had more to go on than the fabricated clues he had left. They, too, acted as if there were confirmation!
The old Uthacalthing would have crafted syulff-kuonn to commemorate such amazing turns. At this moment, though, all he felt was confused, and very tired.
A shout caused them both to turn. Uthacalthing squinted, wishing right then that he could trade some of his unwanted empathy sense for better eyesight.
Atop the next ridge he made out the form of Robert Oneagle. Seated atop the young human’s shoulders, Jo-Jo waved at them. And something else was there, too. A blue glimmering that seemed to spin next to the two Earth creatures and radiate all of the good will of a perfect prankster.
It was the beacon, the light that had led Uthacalthing ever onward, since the crash months before.
“What are they saying?” Kault asked. “I cannot quite make out the words.”
Neither could Uthacalthing. But he knew what the Ter-rans were saying. “I believe they are telling us that we don’t have very much farther to go,” he said with some relief. “They are saying that they have found our transport.”
The Thennanin’s breathing slits puffed in satisfaction. “Good. Now if only we can trust the Gubru to follow custom and proper truce behavior when we appear and offer correct diplomatic treatment to accredited envoys.”
Uthacalthing nodded. But as they began marching uphill together again, he knew that that was only one of their worries.
85
Athaclena
She tried to suppress her feelings. To the others, this was serious, even tragic.
But there was just no way to keep it in; her delight would not be contained. Subtle, ornate glyphs spun off from her waving tendrils and diffracted away through the trees, filling the glades with her hilarity. Athaclena’s eyes were at their widest divergence, and she covered her mouth with her hand so the dour chims would not see her human-style smile as well.